Stardom Cinderella Tournament 2021 4.10

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cero2k
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Stardom Cinderella Tournament 2021 4.10

Post by cero2k » Apr 13th, '21, 19:28

Stardom Cinderella Tournament 2021, Day 1
April 10, 2021
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Hina vs. Lady C - 3.5/10
This may had been the worst match I've seen them in. Granted they're quite green in their careers, but the greeness showed here, they were running through the motions and not properly reacting to what the other was doing in terms of selling. There were no botches, but some moves were not executed properly. Rina won with two TKOs.

Participant Introductions - Good as usual. Prior to everyone coming out, we got the announcement that Hanan is replacing the injured Saya Iida, and that Ruaka is replacing Bea Priestley, who retired after the Yokohama show. Obviously they didn't want to spoil Bea's announcement, but I hope it wasn't so late notice as it is coming off, it be shitty for Bea to not give STARDOM a longer time to plan out the tournament. Saki Kashima has also been replaced by Rina. Kashima seems to be feeling unwell.

Fukigen Death didn't come out with the rest. Gonna pretend that Oedo Tai didn't let her come out.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Hanan vs. Himeka - 6.5/10
Good starter. Hanan being a replacement, I wasn't expecting her to get the win at all, so seeing Himeka just run her over played out as expected. Hanan, developing as a technician, did get to lock in her armbar once after going for Himeka's arm, got a couple of good near falls, only to get taken out by a sliding lariat and the JP Coaster. Good showing by Hanan, tons of potential, and Himeka advances.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Konami vs. Maika - 9/10
Even with the Champion Carnival and DDT shows going on the same weekend, this match just jumped to the front of the line of my favorite so far, still to be beat by anything down the card, but I loved this. They're so similar to each other that they worked in a really cohesive way, trading strikes, working submissions, and even at the end, as they had their finishing sequence on the apron. Eliminating Konami via top rope helps both, it protects Konami, but builds Maika since it's still a struggle, and the best thing, it sets up a rematch with no over the top rope rules.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Natsuko Tora vs. Unagi Sayaka - 6.5/10
Not the greatest match, it wasn't looking good when it started with Tora in control, but once Sayaka started her comeback and got some offense, it really improved. Coming in, this obviously seemed to be yet another singles loss for Sayaka, so it made perfect sense that the story revolved around Sayaka not giving up, like most of her matches, but they did a really good job to not tease the over the top rule until the very end, when they actually went for it, and Sayaka won.

This is Sayaka's first singles win, and it just made sense that it would eventually happen in a tournament. Granted it's not a pinfall win yet, which could be milked with somewhat higher stakes later down the road, be it in this tournament, or against a bigger name.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
AZM vs. Rina - 7/10
Rina attacked AZM during her entrance, so she started with the upper hand. She's another replacement, so it was hard to believe that she would win, but they still had some strong near falls, and really shut my mouth at the end, when Rina won by over the top rope elimination, thanks to Tora. AZM was my favorite to win the tournament, it just felt like she is at that point, ready to get in that top echelon of competitors, and that winning and chasing Nakano was a good direction for her.

They worked the match at a High Speed title pace, with a lot of reversals and pin attempts. It all seemed to be in AZM's hands, she was clearly the stronger of the two, but towards the end, when she closed in on the win, Tora started to interfere, first by pulling on her leg, then by straight up trying to pull her off the apron when she was set on the top rope, ready to take out Rina. At the end, it was the effort of Tora pulling and Rina dropkicking AZM, that landed AZM out of the ring.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Momo Watanabe vs. Starlight Kid - 7.5/10
This is a rematch from last year's first round, where Momo won with the B-Driver. The wholes story here was about Kid not only getting her win back, but building to when Momo would go for the B-Driver and whether Kid had learned to counter it.

Really good match, Momo was in control early on, Kid made a comeback, and as expected, it all built to the B-Driver, which Momo hit, but Kid kicked out. After that, they brawled on the apron, ending with Momo dropping to the floor for the elimination. For storytelling purposes, we see that Kid has grown and was able to kick out of the B-driver, but she still had to win via over the top rope, and had trouble at that. Great stuff for under 7 minutes.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Fukigen Death vs. Mayu Iwatani - 6.5/10
This is the first time we've seen Death since losing the Yokohama match and being forced to join Oedo Tai, and she goes against Iwatani, who is taking it to heart that she was the one that let down Death. She hadn't seen her until she came out, she didn't know if Death would be a prisoner, or if she had completely turned Oedo Tai, but nonetheless, she still wanted to win the tournament and wear the winner's dress.

Death came out first, dragged by Tora, wearing her usual attire, but with an Oedo Tai shirt on, with her facepaint all dark and ran down, but as soon as the match started, she jumped Mayu during her entrance, and soon after, it was confirmed, she was Oedo Tai, as she posed with Tora and said her name - Fukigen Death. She played with Mayu's feelings, at one point pretending that Mayu's kicks had brought out the old Gokigen, propose a hug, only to turn it into a Belly-to-belly.

Mayu was about to become the embodiment of 'Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on Mayu', but she quickly rolled up Death and ended the match when Death tried to do the same trick on her. Mayu walked out confused. Not the best match, but an interesting follow up to this story.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Ruaka vs. Giulia - 6.5/10
Great layout to this match, it started with Ruaka jumping Giulia and immediately going for the top rope elimination, Ruaka is still a 16 year old rookie, going against the former white belt champion, if she allows Giulia to set the pace, Ruaka is done for. In addition to this, Ruaka has the power advantage over Giulia, forcing Giulia to have to push harder to cut her offense off and finish her ASAP before Ruaka ended up getting the upset win. Giulia eventually got the 5 seconds she needed to focus up, wake up, take down Ruaka, and win with a Northern Lights Bomb. This went less than 5 minutes, and it was the perfect amount of time to this story.

This is the best Ruaka match I've seen, she had a great dance partner. Ruaka is still super young, but she is on her way to be a great hoss wrestler. If Tora has been watching Dump Matsumoto tapes, Ruaka needs to start watching Yoshiko and latter year Nagano tapes.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Utami Hayashishita vs. Mina Shirakawa - 7.5/10
This was great! Similarly to Giulia vs Ruaka, this was the desperation of a rookie versus the strength of a champion. This was more back and forward, but you could still see the determination in Mina to take on Hayashishita with everything she had. I particularly liked the top rope spot the most, with Shirakawa having Hayashishita on the corner ready to eliminate, just clobbering on her with everything she had, but Hayashishita just wouldn't let go. At the end, champions prevail as Hayashishita pins Mina with a German.

Shirakawa had a great performance, maybe people will stop pretending like she's not a good wrestler because she came from the Idol side of TJPW.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Tam Nakano vs. Saya Kamitani - 7/10
I haven't been mentioning the pre-match promos, but Nakano just cut the best babyface promo of the year. Hard to count it for Promo of the Year because it's just a pre-match comment, but it was perfect for her character and position in the company.

Match was good, but really short. They went less than 6 minutes, and half of that, they spent on the apron trying to drop each other. It all came down to Kamitani doing a springboard headscissors from the apron into Nakano, and pulling her over the top rope and into the floor.

Cinderella Tournament 2021 First Round Match
Syuri vs. Natsupoi - 8.5/10
This was the first time in about 5 years these two have wrestled, their wrestling has surely changed in such a time.

This was easily the most brutal match of the night, Syuri kicked the hell out of Natsu, some really stiff sounding kicks, and none of that leg slapping thing that people complain about, straight up kickpads versus body. Natsupoi in returned, to cut off her kicking ability, went after Syuri's leg with Dragon Screws. Once hurt, Poi tried for the quick pin or top rope elimination, but with no success. At the end, Syuri recovered and knocked out Natsupoi with a series of kicks to the head and got the pin. Strong performance from both, but only one could advance.

Natsupoi ended with a little bump on her forehead.

Post-match - Syuri cut a promo saying she was happy to have met Natsupoi in the first round, and thanked her for the great match. Syuri said she wanted HAyashishita on the second round, she wants to beat her, win the tournament, and win the red belt, and bring STARDOM into Syuri's world. Donna del Mondo closed the show.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Great show! It was A LOT of matches, but the 15 minute time limit kept the matches short, the over the top rope elimination rule always helps, not only protect people, but change up the pace of finishes we see. We had a great combination of upsets and predictable wins, all setting us up for what should be a strong second part of the tournament.
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